Worlds Beyond
by ZocoLP
Summary: He always wondered if there was any life beyond Runeterra and its galaxy. With one special incident with a friend of his, he might just find out.


**HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE!**

 **I've been out of the writing scene for a while now, but recent events have inspired me to come back and keep going (like my computer breaking multiple times preventing me from playing video games :P). Plus, I don't like it when I leave things hanging. For now, enjoy this story regarding an interesting friend of mine I've made towards the beginning of high school. This will be a bit different from my other birthday stories.**

 **It's not quite done yet, and I'll finish it within the coming week because I became ill while writing. For now, it's just the first chapter, but the other two are on their way soon.**

* * *

A cold metallic feeling wrapped around his eye as his vision magnified into the sight above. ' _Pitch black'_ he first thought ' _but there's a very dim but apparent light gently brushed against it'_. It looked beautiful, just like the sight there is when one closes their eyes. He felt his hand glide over a metal handle and gently pull the object slowly to the right, moving his line of sight ever so slightly. He pulled just about an inch and two dots of light came into vision. They were small, but heavenly dots amidst the pitch black plane in the background. He saw the rays of light emit off of the object and stretch as far as they could before they fade away. To think that all he was looking at right now were merely dots in the sky when in reality they were something much bigger: stars.

He removed his eye from the telescope and looked down at the desk in front of him. Upon it lay three papers side by side, each labeled in order 'Assignment 4-5' 'Assignment 4-6' and 'Assignment 4-7'. Written on the header of all of them were his name, Chase, the date, the class, _Astronomy II_ , and his professor's name. He knew each assignment from top to bottom, as all of the questions on them came from his two books: ' _Stars II'_ and ' _Planets II'_. Although, for the ends of each assignment, he needed actual observations of stars and planets. He grabbed his pencil and began writing on the middle paper:

 _Observations_

 _Emission of light - lx value 0.0011, Radius - NA, Radiation - NA, Distance - 0.03 parsecs._

' _Damn'_ he thought, ' _Don't know the radiation and radius'_. He looked over at his book on stars, contemplating if he should reread the part on how to measure the radius of the star and how to determine the radiation of a star. Sighing in exhaustion, he looked down at his watch. It read 2:00 in the morning; by this time he'd normally be asleep. Chase felt his eyes getting heavier, eventually dropping to fall asleep, and then flicking back up quickly. These assignments needed to be done two days from now, and he wanted to finish them early for once. He didn't know what it was as he was normally the lazy type, but something in his mind compelled him to keep working. He has been here for 3 hours so far, and being alone in a dome most of the time has been extremely boring.

He sat back in his chair and stared in front of him. He was awfully lucky to have been given permission to use this giant telescope in the first place. It was nicknamed 'Solaire 3000' as it was the first ever telescope Piltover has created that could look directly at the sun during daytime without the sun completely blinding the user. This allowed Piltover scientists to directly observe the sun during the day and connect the sight of the telescope to empowered monitors in the labs below where they can further analyze observational data collected. He was lucky that his professor had contacts within this system, or else he would have never been given this opportunity.

However, there was nothing else in this giant dome besides the telescope, tons of wires flowing to lower floors, and a desk. When he first saw this room, he wondered where everything was. All there is are an entire floor of white tiles, walls that arced up and formed the dome he was in, and lights across the entire ceiling. If he spoke a word, it would echo across the entire room.

Although he knows that he shouldn't complain. PIFA, or the Piltover Institute for Astronomy, has provided him an unlimited bank of knowledge to pursue his dream career. They've housed Chase ever since he had graduated high school and considered him one of their top students. They valued how much he had aspired to be an astronomer and how much passion that he had for the subject. From the start, recruiters at PIFA knew that he was a prime candidate for success, and he has not failed them so far.

Chase leaned back and stretched, yawning once again and almost letting his bland, gray beanie slip off of his head. His messy, blonde hair tickled over his eyelids enough to keep them open. He let his hands slide off of the desk they laid on and onto his white t-shirt, eventually slipping into the pocket of his dark blue jeans. He tensed again, briefly realizing what he needed to complete before drifting off into his own thoughts again.

He had dreamed about any worlds beyond the one he lived on. Whether hydrated or dehydrated, had organisms or uninhabited, he could only imagine what another planet would be like. As of now, Runeterra was the only planet ever discovered within their solar system. Any planet that may be within this solar system must be millions of light-years away or just do not exist. The only other objects present are the star Runeterra orbits around and their moon.

' _Where could one lie'_ he thought, ' _Where could another body of… anything lie. Neither good nor evil, ugly nor pretty, just anything. There has to be something beyond Runeterra'_. These same thoughts had cursed his mind ever since he had begun thinking about it. It hadn't occurred to him until he had entered the Institute that there had never been a discovery of another planet beyond Runeterra. Actually, the astronomical history beyond Runeterra is very scarce. The only sources of astronomical knowledge of from the ancient tribes of the Solari and Rakkor, but that had dated back to a time long ago. Even with today's modern telescopes, astronomers could not find any traces of another planet. The telescopes were fitted by professional engineers that claimed that it could see millions of light-years away, but still no one could find anything. He wondered if there really was a planet beyond their own, or maybe if the astronomers were just doing something wrong.

His thoughts were interrupted as the rare sense of sound filled his ears. They were footsteps, followed by the loud sound of a door creaking. Noticing, he looked behind him and recognized the figure immediately. A girl, just slightly shorter than him, was walking towards Chase. Her short, blonde hair waved lusciously behind her and shone bright similarly to the white tile. Chase noticed she wore a queer smirk directed at him, and batted her eyelashes revealing her blood orange eyes. Likewise, she wore a white and red dress wrapped with cloth at the waist, and a further scarlet hem going down the dress until it stopped at her knees. From there she wore short socks with a fitting looking pair of black boots. Her arms hugged two textbooks and notebook against her chest. Looking closer, they were the same books that Chase had.

Her boots clicked on the floor as she made her way towards him. Chase stopped to observe her every movement. He knew that she was quite the mischievous one. Some of the most unexpected things have come out of her mouth, ranging from very intelligent to extremely stupid. Nevertheless, she was his classmate and issued his semester partner.

"You're here late." Chase said as she set her books down next to his.

"Yeah, well I can say the same to you." She replied in a sarcastic manner, looking at Chase and giving him that same, cocky smile as if she had dominance over him in these conversations. Chase knew she was like that to anyone she talked to. She wasn't exactly the most polite person in Valoran. The girl began to organize her books, placing the two textbooks side by side and pulling out her notebook. From her notebook she pulled out three worksheets, conveniently the same three that Chase was working on. None of them have been started, but she did write her name on the top of all three: Scarlet. "Besides, you know I'm an early riser. Plus I don't really sleep."

"True." Chase yawned and stretched his arms outwards. "It's just like you to wake up early and walk about, huh."

"Yep. It's also like me to find you half asleep in front of a giant telescope the professor's letting us use because you're too stubborn to let these go by you." She said, flashing her three assignments in front of her face.

"I guess so." He said, not willing to argue against her now causing her to chuckle at his response.

"Well that's good I guess," Scarlet said. Before Chase had any time to react, she reached over his shoulder and stole all three of his papers and put them on the opposite side of the desk. "Because now I get to copy right off of you."

"Go right ahead." Chase said, blatantly defeated. He took his beanie off, letting his messy hair slide further down his head. He dropped his beanie onto the desk and let his head fall on top of it, cradling his head with his arms. Closing his eyes, he let out another exhausted sigh.

"Wasn't Oly supposed to pick you up, like, an hour ago?" She asked flipping her eyes from one paper to the next, speedily writing down the answers.

"Yeah, but I called him earlier telling him not to." His voice was muffled into his beanie. "Besides, he's here on vacation with Ahri. I don't want him to drive me everywhere like he did in high school. I'll just let him enjoy his vacation."

"Where are they staying?" Scarlet asked.

"They had a hotel room in Apex Lot's Hotel, but last I heard they moved to a log cabin they rented in the outskirts… you know they probably just did that so they had a private place to keep 'sixty-nine'ing' each other. Or they just got kicked out because they made too much noise, but I don't know how that would be possible."

"How come?"

"Because he has a small dick."

"How do you know? I mean, it's probably true but you can't talk mister 'I-like-to-fuck-bears' man."

"Shutup." Chase rolled his head over to look at her, only to find that she was looking right back at him. Their eyes connected, and instead of that challenging look she always wore changed to a more compassionate look. "What?"

"Nothing…" she paused "your eyes just look really bloodshot." Scarlet's eyes left his and back down onto her papers, continuing to write. She was barely done with the first side of the first worksheet.

"Hurry up and finish, I wanna get out of here." He rolled his head back over onto his beanie and shut his eyes. The constant sound of pencil scribbling against paper barely kept him from falling asleep on the dot.

"You were really determined to get this assignment done, huh?" Scarlet asked. The question came unexpected to him.

"What's it to you?" He countered.

"It's nothing to me. However it isn't just like you to do assignments early like this unless something is happening, so I want to know." She kept writing, trying to make her assertion less aggressive. Likewise, it wasn't like her to want to know things about him like this.

"Well, if you really want to know…" Chase sat up and looked at her. Scarlet didn't pay any mind. "It's getting to the end of the semester, and I want to make our professor proud and show that I'm working hard to achieve my goal. The simple truth is that I just want to have good grades."

"Hmph, you wish that was the only reason." Scarlet snarled. She pushed the first paper off to the side and grabbed the second one to begin working on that. "So what's the other reason?" She asked directly. She had really seen right through him that easily? Chase sighed.

"I'm leaving at the end of the semester."

Suddenly, Scarlet's pencil snapped. Chase saw the tip of the pencil roll across the white tile and eventually getting stuck in one of the gaps in the tile.

"Damn it!" Scarlet explained. She grabbed her back and began ruffling through it. Despite her effort, she could not find a pencil sharpener. Setting her bag back down on the ground, she held her hand out to Chase. "Do you mind?"

"Sure thing." Chase said, and lent her a pencil. She nodded at him and continued working.

"So you're leaving, continue."

"I just don't think Piltover is the right place for me, ya' know. I mean, sure all of the technology is cool and stuff, but Demacia might just have more for me. They also have a great Astronomy Institute, and there's bound to be more historical data in Demacia than Piltover. Plus my mother lives there, so I can just stay with her instead of having to pay for my own room and board like now."

"Reasonable." Scarlet said. "If I was in a position like you, I would do the same."

"I'm glad you unders-"

"But unfortunately I'm not." Her voice abruptly became really thick. "Unfortunately I'm still confined to this place like I have been for the past eighteen years and it's fucking frustrating." Chase looked up at her. Her face quickly tensed under his gaze. A large grimace spread across her face.

"What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, it's just I've been stuck here like I said and...and…" Chase noticed her eyes begin to tear, but before she shed one Scarlet swallowed and took a deep breath. There was silence for about thirty seconds. "Sorry… sorry I got carried away."

"It's ok. I'd just like to…" Chase began, but then became quiet. At first he was confused, but with a terrible realization he became aware of what distressed her. Quickly, he pulled out his phone and checked the date: October 13th.

"Oh…" His voice lowered.

"Yeah…"

"I'm so sorry." Chase leaned over and embraced Scarlet. She didn't hug back, but let him. Silently she sobbed into his shoulder.

He remembered her telling him a few months after they had first met that she'd sometimes become emotionally unstable around the end of fall season. Scarlet told Chase outright and blunt that her sister, Remy, had disappeared on that day of last year. No traces of her were found, and Piltover's police could not find any leads as to what had happened. After six months of investigation throughout the entire city, Piltover's sheriff, Caitlyn, had decided to close the case. Scarlet begged her to keep the case open and continue searching, but six months of no evidence or any traces found was enough to keep Caitlyn convinced that the case wasn't getting anywhere.

After a few moments, she pulled away. Scarlet wiped her eyes dry with her arm and turned back to her papers.

"It's fine." She claimed. "There's nothing you can do about it, so don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do about it. The best you can do is not think about it." Chase tried to comfort.

"Yeah… yeah I try."

Both of them went quiet for the next few minutes. Even though he was tired, Chase now seemed awake due to Scarlet's breakdown. It hadn't been long since Scarlet and Chase had met. They had known each other had existed since they had passed by each other on campus a number of times, but they hadn't spoken a word to each other until they were assigned as partners from random selection.

Scarlet didn't leave the best first impression on Chase. She seemed introverted, and at first didn't bother striking conversation with him. Most of the time she either spent alone or hanging out with another group of friends that Chase had never talked to. They seemed shady enough, and Scarlet sometimes seemed miserable talking to them. Her group of friends wasn't the most open people. Every time Chase talked to them, it seemed uncomfortable. It was Scarlet and three other girls, and over time Scarlet parted ways with them.

Chase, on the other hand, had his own group of friends. It was him and three other men, all of whom went to the same high school. However now, they all chose separate ways as they headed off to different colleges in the different cities of Valoran. Chase was the only one that had chosen a school in Piltover. Despite this, they all kept in touch online. Late night online groups seemed to be the only time that they could talk together.

On that first day, Scarlet seemed miserable and really didn't want Chase to converse with her. He didn't, and had thought from first impressions that he'd be doing all the work while carrying her weight. This was until they were given their first assignment together. Here Chase discovered that Scarlet was much smarter than she initially seemed.

Scarlet's writing speed increased after her meltdown. In relation, her writing also became messier than her normal exquisite cursive. Flipping her paper over, she wrote for another few seconds until she stopped.

"You missed a question." She stated. Chase leaned over and saw the question he missed.

"Oh yeah, I missed a few." He said. Shaking her head, she disregarded what he had said. Instead, she wrote down an answer without questioning Chase or referring to the book. Then she pulled Chase's paper closer and wrote the answer in for him, attempting to mimic Chase's messy handwriting.

" _Diane 0-9_ is the name of the moon." She said, placing his paper back in its normal spot. "I'm surprised you didn't know that, astronomer-man. It was named after Valoran's last-chosen lunar heretic."

"Yeah, well I was lazy and didn't want to check the book."

"Is that so?" Chase didn't respond. He wasn't going to argue against her right now. It would just damage Scarlet's mind more than it already was. Instead, a few sounds of scribbles later, she set her pencil down.

"Ok." She said.

"You done?"

"Yep." She gathered up her papers and stuffed them inside of her notebook. Chase did the same, and both of them packed all of their books in their bags. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah."

* * *

The lights active in Piltover stood out the most throughout the northern states of Valoran. It was nothing like Zaun, Piltover's neighboring city, where the manufacturing has led to overflows of pollution. It was quite the opposite, where their evolution and investment in technology has led to a supreme growth amongst the quality and economy of the city. Through statistics, Piltover was stated as the second cleanest city within Valoran below Demacia, as well as declared the city with the lowest crime rates due to Piltover's excellent police force. However, despite statistics, life in Piltover is all about personal experience. Chase has had a relatively peaceful life in Piltover. Scarlet had quite the opposite.

Exiting the building, Chase and Scarlet found themselves amidst the widest boulevard in Piltover. The strip of road was alive even at night. Multitudes of humans were walking around, locals and tourists, looking for something to satisfy their Saturday night. The telescope was located at the very end of the strip, leaving them to view a sort of round-a-bout area that separated into two smaller streets leading to two opposite ends of the city. The strip was not the direction to their destination. Avoiding the appeal of luxuries amongst the strip, Chase and Scarlet walked south, lessening the distance between them and their apartment complex.

It took them about twenty minutes to leave the rowdy entertainment of the strip and locate their apartment complex. It was simple but large, and housed most of the students that attended the small population of PIFA. Stretching just over an acre of land, the building was five stories tall with approximately forty apartment rooms on each floor excluding the lobby. It was located just on the side of a steep hill, so that students had a great view of the shining strip and boulevard below.

At this time, everybody was asleep or silently studying in their rooms. When they both entered, the silent lobby was eerie to both of them. Even though it was very well kept, the couches on both sides of the room had been covered with plastic wrap to prevent dust from settling upon the fabric. All of the pictures and paintings that decorated the cerulean blue walls were dark and undecipherable. The only source of light that lit the lobby was one overhead light bulb attached to a three-bladed powered fan. The rattling of the fan was the only source of sound besides their own footsteps. Careful not to wake up anyone on the first floor, they crept up the stairs until they hit the fourth floor.

Conveniently, Scarlet and Chase happened to be separated by only three rooms and located on opposite sides of the hall. The rug muffled the sound of their footsteps as they proceeded down the hallway. Both of their rooms were towards the end, Chase's room being numbered 4-89 and Scarlet's room being labeled as 4-95.

Just as Chase reached towards his pocket for his keys, Scarlet brushed her hand over his.

"Not yet." Scarlet whispered. "Come with me. I have to give you something." Not knowing what to think, Chase followed her. Even though her voice sounded serious, he couldn't help but think about what she'd do, and even had quick thoughts about _that_.

Scarlet took her keys from her bag and unlocked her room's door, walking in and closing it behind Chase. Flipping on a switch, a light suddenly burned into Chase's eye like a solar flare. Besides this, the light illuminated Scarlet's room. Her room was well kept, just like her, but was also very standard. The walls of her room were painted a dim scarlet color, with the light exaggerating the color. On the left, her bed was made and against the wall. At the foot of the bed was her dresser; the bottom drawer was open by about a quarter of an inch. To the side of the head of the bed lay exactly her desk. The wooden desk was larger than the average desk but the one that all of the apartments came with. On it was a lamp plugged into the wall beneath the desk, a paper organizer separating all of her work, whether personal or school-related, as well as some papers sprawled out randomly on it already. On the right wall was the door that led to her bathroom and a bookshelf without very many books on it.

"Wait here, I have to get something." Scarlet said. Weirdly enough, she fled off to her bathroom and shut the door behind her.

"Ok then." Chase mouthed, unsettled by the situation. Not knowing what to do, he sat on the edge of her bed.

He hadn't been in Scarlet's room much, but whenever he entered there seemed to be something different about it. Chase couldn't put his finger on it, but he concluded that something was being added, but nothing was being taken away whenever he entered. For example: there was a string of thin garland that hung above her desk. On it, instead of bowtie or mistletoe Christmas decorations, hung crystals. They were the same kind of crystal, but each of them was a different color. Seven of them hung in order: light blue, blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, light green, and light blue again. He swore that he never noticed the final light blue before. However, it could be his lack of awareness striking again.

Curious and without having anything to do, he got up and strode towards her desk. Like he noticed, papers were sprawled out amongst the desk. They were layered on top of each other, most papers covering the words of others. This was unlike her. It almost looked like that she rushed out at the very last moment without taking the time to tidy her space. Why would she have so many papers on her desk? Chase touched a paper related to her astronomy studies and moved it gently to the side. Underneath it was a scrap piece of paper with her writing written in the lines. He originally thought that it was an assignment that she had completed on a scrap piece of paper, but upon closer inspection her name, class, and date were not written on the top right hand corner. Instead, her signature was written larger than what she had wrote at the bottom of the paper. _A letter_ , he suspected. Out of respect, he didn't read the letter. Underneath the letter was another piece of paper with the same format, a second letter. He didn't read that one either. He looked to the right of the letters and noticed something different. It was a postcard sized piece of paper. It wasn't a letter, however, after pulling the paper out from beneath other papers, it read in large, bold letters:

"THE PRESERVERS OF VALORAN ARE WATCHING OVER."

The background of the postcard was separated in half. On one half of the postcard was a mysterious and supernatural seeming world, with a space field a hazy purple and stars blanketing the field. On the other half was an overhead shot of Valoran, with Piltover recognizable in the distance.

He abruptly heard the toilet flush after analyzing the postcard. Quickly, he ruffled the papers into a messy formation similar to the fashion he found it in and sat back down on the bed. It took another ten seconds for Scarlet to come out from her bathroom. In her hands was a large piece of paper rolled up.

"Have fun?" Chase asked with a cheeky smile.

"You wish." Scarlet scoffed. Chase moved over and Scarlet plopped down onto the bed beside him.

"Should I ask why you had a scroll in your bathroom?" He asked.

"There's a hole in the wall behind the shower. I just store the crap I don't want out here back there." Scarlet explained. "Plus, this isn't a scroll. Look." Carefully, she pulled the paper apart.

It was a tax map of Piltover, however of only one portion: the strip. The map of the strip spanned like a blueprint. The estimated polygons of each building on the strip were labeled with either a number or a letter. The map spanned primarily the strip, but also spanned a bit past it, going up just to the edge of the apartment building they were in right now. Scribbled on the edges where no buildings were drawn were small labels indicating what each building was. The tax map was last updated about two years ago, but surprisingly nothing new was added to the strip during the period.

"You like?" She asked.

"Yeah…" Truth be told, he was more confused. "Why do you have a tax map of the strip?"

"It was lying in the back of the library. I snuck out with it when no one was looking." A cocky smile brushed her lips, and Chase chuckled a little. "But it's cool right? I forgot these things even existed."

"They're basically blueprints." Chase expressed.

"Yeah, but they're used by the government to label each of these buildings so they can accurately identify them." She pointed to the numbers in the bottom left. "We're area seven, the strip is section zero-two-three, and we…" She moved her finger over their apartment building. "Are parcel two-five-nine."

"And all of these numbers are logged within the government?"

"In some way, yes. I don't know how." She said. They spent a moment looking it over. Chase hadn't seen one up close before, so he still didn't quite know what he was looking at.

"Why are you showing this to me exactly?" He asked.

"I was going to give this to you." She said. "Since you said you're going to be leaving soon, I'd thought I would give you something to remember Piltover by, even if it is something as standard as this." Scarlet rolled the map back up and shoved it into his arms. "Plus, I feel as if you'd find some use for it unlike me."

"You didn't have to -"

"But I did. Besides, I've looked that thing up and down and have practically memorized it by now. Maybe you can too… you know, on your free time."

"Thanks… I guess." He thanked. Scarlet smiled and nodded at him.

"No problem." She got up and headed towards the door. Opening it, she turned back and stared at Chase as if he knew the routine.

"Aww, now you're kicking me out." Chase sarcastically complained.

"Boo hoo. I know you're tired and so am I, so get out."

"I thought you woke up early though."

"Yeah, but since you made me cry I want to lie down for a bit." Without arguing any further, Chase stood up and slowly made his way out of her room, taunting Scarlet along the way. Once he stepped outside of her door, he turned back to her.

"See ya' tomorrow." She bid adieu, then closed the door.

Naturally, Chase's body immediately felt heavy and tired again with the sense of nothing to do. Knowing this, Chase dragged himself over to his room, unlocked the door and closed the door behind him. He threw himself onto his bed and instantly fell asleep.

* * *

Chase woke up with a rattle. His eyes flung open and his room was shaking. Although it only happened for a second. Tired but interested, he rolled himself over and looked at his digital clock. However, there was nothing on it. The bright red numbers that would normally be on it weren't present. It was odd. Chase, still feeling extremely tired, rolled out of bed and grabbed his phone instead. It read 4:00am. He had only slept about an hour.

Chase walked over to his window and pulled back the curtain. Chase had a great view over the strip. Normally, he could see the lights of the strip beneath him. Except this time, those lights weren't there. Actually, nothing was visible outside of his window. It was pitch black.

 _The power must've gone out._ He thought. However, this didn't explain the shaking that woke him up. It wasn't an earthquake. An earthquake would've been much stronger. He didn't hear anything outside of his room, no commotion.

Thinking nothing of it, he lay back down on his bed and hoped that everything would be fine in the morning.


End file.
